JUNE 18-27, 2011, VASTO, Abruzzo Region, Italy

Thursday, June 9, 2011

ANIMATION WORKSHOP - basic information/plan

1. It is important that the animation pieces will give a clear message on the topic of sustainable development. Guidelines could be environmental protection, sustainable behaviors,
fight against pollution, alternative energies (after Fukushima), in Vasto there is the strong topic of the oil drilling and the creation and promotion of the National Park of the coastal area.
We ask all the participants to take a little time to think about this topics and to try to come up with an idea for short animation that is based on this topics before arrival to Vasto.
If everyone comes with the complete vision-idea for their animation it will save us some time and we can begin to work right away when in Vasto, also, this way we can prepare better,
this way each participant can know what to bring to the workshop in terms of preferred personal tools, materials, animation props etc.

2. Each participant can create animation piece by her/himself or participants can create groups of two, three, four... it is up to you.

3. Duration of your animation piece is up to you. Just make sure that, when creating the idea for your animation piece, that it is something that is possible to complete in 4 days that we
have for workshop.

4. Technique is up to you, we are going to mainly focus on stop-motion technique but any other technique is welcome. If any of you plan to do classical drawn animation, make sure to bring
your own animation pegs and lots of paper with holes for pegs. Sonia will bring a light table so one light table will be available. Equipment for stop motion (photo camera, tripod, lights) will
be available. Bring any of your equipment that you think you are going to need (laptop, photo camera...). For any specific needs, technical support or creative support, write to us and
we will do our best to help.

5. Music - sound for your animation: sound recording equipment will be available at the workshop, so if anyone needs some sounds recorded on the spot, no problem. Vuk will bring his clarinet and
melodica, so it will be possible to record music for your animation with Vuk. Also feel free to bring your own prepared music, sound clips, any music or sound files you think you might going to need
when editing and putting together your animation piece. We will be there to help you in editing both creatively and technically if needed.

6. So... on the first day we will begin with finalizing our ideas-stories for the animation piece, then we will draw quick storyboards and begin animating! When all of the animation pieces are finished, we
will put them all together in one omnibus.The final outcome will be screened in final event/exhibition opening, and distributed on the internet through Youtube and Vimeo channels.

Made by Toma Pan

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

PRACTICAL INFORMATION

Hello dear participants to the youth exchange BITTA GENERATION, we hope to find all of you well and ready to be involved in this adventure in Italy. We are looking forward to meet of all you and work together for a successful development of the project.

We are writing to all of you in order to give to you some information, reminder and updating about the project.

All of you will be hosted in 2 beds rooms in bungalows in the camping Grotta del Saraceno (http://www.grottadelsaraceno.it/) where we will realise most of our activities. You need to bring towels and whatever you need for your personal hygiene. Sheets and blankets will be provided by the camping. Because we will be on the sea sight, we strongly recommend to bring swimsuit, beach towel and solar cream.

On the 19th afternoon we will have a special working session devoted to the knwoledge of our NGO's. Each national group will prepare a sort of stand with informations regarding the association in order to have a special "fair" (or suk or bazaar or ...) to know all of NGO's backgrounds. No official presentations will take place in order to don't have a boring session but each stand should be as much attractive and visual as possible. So we invite all of you to bring photos, brochures, posters, gadgets and whatever is nice and interesting to share with the others about your NGO.

The evening of the same day we will have also the intercultural evening: each national group will have to bring some cold food and drinks from your countries in order to manage an evening with testes and flavours from all the countries involved. NO POSSIBILITIES TO COOK, sorry!

In the evenings of 20th and 22nd June we will have two Open Space sessions: they will be a free place for participants to perform, expose and share their artistic backgrounds and environmental experiences. So all of you are invited to bring your own art works and different materials (from video to flyers) concerning important issues on Sustainable Development in your local context or worldwide.

Internet. In some parts of the camping it will be available a wireless connection for free. Suddenly those areas are not exactly where we will be. Anyway, during the free time you will be able to be connected (of course, for those who will bring lap tops).

Thanks to the Romanian partner, and especially to Anamaria, the project has this devoted blog where you can find first information. Furthermore, it will be nice if you will use this blog as a first knowledge and sharing opinion on the project. Some links are already available both on the topics of the project and on the personal websites of those of you who communicated to us. So, please, go there, enjoy and contribute.


Giorgio, Mario, Lino

Thursday, June 2, 2011

WORKSHOPS

Video Animation:
Aim of this workshop is to use the technique of stop motion/traditional animation and united forces of all participants in order to create an animation piece. Participants will use available objects, trash, dolls, actors and bodies, to tell a metaphoric/allegoric story about the impact of the environmentally irresponsible behavior on the planet. The final outcome will be screened in final event/exhibition opening, and distributed on the internet through Youtube and Vimeo channels.


Comics:
Aim of this workshop is to use the “graphic journalism” as a tool of exploring the local ecology topics and spreading the word about it through comics form. Participants will have to work on interviewing the local activists and researching, in order to create a short reportage about the certain topic, that will be transferred into a comics form. Will be provided good info and insight into the most hot ecology topics and problems that are present in local area of Vasto with the aim to support the local eco-campaigns with production and later distribution of the materials created in the workshop. The challenge will be to deal with these topics in a way that they can be represented and communicative in any environment because all the “local” ecology problems have at the same time their universal and global aspect.


Communication:
The aim is to produce as big amount as possible of stickers, posters, flyers, t-shirt designs, stencils and badge-buttons, that will be dealing with topics of ecology and sustainable development. Participants will be provided with good info and insight into the most hot ecology topics and problems that are present in local area of Vasto with the aim to support the local eco-campaigns with production and later distribution of the materials created in the workshop. The challenge will be to deal with these topics in a way that they can be represented and communicative in any environment because all the “local” ecology problems have at the same time their universal and global aspect.

INTRO CONCEPT

Several European NGOs are engaged in a long term project called ORA (OBSERVE, RETHINK, ACT) that want to promote and aware European citizens on Sustainable Development issues through the use of different tools (education and environmental actions, art and music, video production and web, Eco center and Nature Reserve, etc.) and the organization of international meetings among activists, volunteers and youth workers.

The main theme of the project “BITTA GENERATION” is to use the graphic art as tools to promote positive values in the framework of sustainable development, to encourage intercultural dialogue, inclusion and active participation of young people in the European social life. We believe that is possible to connect innovative arts and environmental subjects because in the world of imagination and creativity you can up side down the reality. At the same time, the graphic art is one of the most popular way for young people to express themselves and their ideas: comics, video animations, fanzines, stickers are more and more the tools with which young people are interacting with their societies, their contexts, their peer.

As far as the realisation of the project is concerned, all the guidelines and activities planned have been thought to guarantee the full involvement and the free expression of participants as an ongoing process (peer education, sharing by experiences and good practices, learning by doing and through interaction) in which all the partners and participants will have a role as much participative as possible using methods of non-formal education and with the majority of sessions based on participative and active learning. The project expect the realisation of 3 workshops (Video Animation, Comics, Communication), the realisation of an exhibition in Vasto (Italy, 25th June) and the possibility to print and publish a fanzine (Bitta Generation) in hundreds copies where to collect all the outcomes of the project.